Mr. Speaker, the difficult part is that for a full year the minister's answer and the answer of her parliamentary secretary in the House was that the decision that was taken was taken by CIDA, as an organization, that it was taken according to its priorities and that it was its decision. For a full year she hid behind CIDA making that decision.

Suddenly, in December she said, “No, I made it myself”, but she did not admit in December who it was that put the knot in the “not”.

The minister said some 10 times before the House of Commons foreign affairs and international development committee that she was the one who made the decision. She said that again yesterday.

I do not know how things operated when the member was in government in Ontario, but on this side of the House ministers make those types of decisions and ministers take responsibility, which is exactly what the minister has done.

The minister has done an outstanding job on international development in every corner of the world. She has done a fantastic job. Canada is awfully lucky to have her.

Mr. Speaker, the minister takes so much responsibility for her decisions that she is apparently incapable today of standing in her place and telling us why the story that is being told on her behalf, not by her, is a completely different story than the one she was perpetrating around the House of Commons for a full year.

The minister did not have the courage to tell the committee when she met with us in December that in fact she was the one who authorized the “not”. Why did the minister not tell the truth to the committee in December when she appeared before it?

Mr. Speaker, the horror of rightful indignation from the former leader of the NDP.

The minister is the one who made the decision and she has always been incredibly clear on that. The minister made the right decision and the correct decision to focus our foreign aid spending on helping the most vulnerable and not on Canadian NGOs.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs replied earlier to my colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher that the question he asked yesterday about freezing Ben Ali's assets was not clear. His question was “whether or not Canada has frozen the assets of members of the Ben Ali entourage”. The minister cannot claim that he did not understand, because he replied, “...as I have told my colleague many times: the request has to come from the Tunisian government”.

Since the minister knows that the request was sent, how does he explain his inaction in that regard?

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague did not read the part before that, which was about Egypt. As I indicated, the country must first ask us to intervene. That applies to all countries. In that regard, as I have been repeating for a few weeks now, we are working closely with the Tunisian government to come up with options in order to freeze the assets of individuals who are not welcome in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my preamble with Egypt. The day after Mubarak's fall from power, Switzerland immediately froze his entire family's assets. I will now move on to Tunisia and I hope the minister can keep up. Tunisia has been asking for such assets to be frozen for some time now. Can the minister answer my question regarding Tunisia? Can he pull his head out of the Egyptian sand and answer me about Ben Ali?

Mr. Speaker, I will try to keep it simple for the Bloc Québécois leader. He just referred to the earlier discussion about Egypt, which he did not do a few minutes ago. As for pulling one's head out of the sand, perhaps he could pull his own head out of the sand.

On March 5, 2001, Transport Canada issued a press release announcing “four projects for priority action in support of Toronto's bid for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games”. The minister responsible for the Quebec City region stated yesterday in the House that “most of the investments made at that time were for the purpose of redeveloping the lakeshore”.

How can the minister deny that the federal government spent $500 million backing Toronto's Olympic bid? One of these versions is true—

Mr. Speaker, in the same press release, in the second paragraph, it states that the projects announced are for waterfront revitalization. Four projects were announced: the preparation of the Port Lands district, a second platform at Union Station, an extension to Front Street, and an environmental assessment. That is what was announced, not an Olympic bid.

In an Environment Canada report released in 2007–08, it states that “Each of the three orders of government announced a funding commitment of $500 million...[for] Toronto's bid for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games”.

Why are the reasons used to justify the funding of the Toronto bid no longer valid when it comes to funding an arena in Quebec City?

Mr. Speaker, how costly will the Conservatives' bigger prison agenda be? How much will it cost Canadian taxpayers for a policy that failed everywhere to fight crime effectively?

The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates the cost at $5.1 billion annually for only one bill. This is an astounding cost. Imagine what the cost must be for the whole big jail agenda. The government now admits that it has a number but it does not want to release it. It must. Parliamentarians are entitled to see this number. Canadians have the right to see this number. After all, it is their money. The government should table it. Why will it not table it?